SF 



BEES 

FOR THE HORTICULTURIST 
BULLETIN 

of the 

KANSAS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
O. F. WHITNEY, Secretary 




TOPEKA, KANSAS 
June, 1922 



PRINTED BY KANSAS STATE PRINTING PLANT 

B. P. WALKER, STATE PRINTER 
TOPEKA. 1922 

9-3436 



BEES 



HORTICULTURIST 



BULLETIN 



OF THE 



Kansas State Horticultural Society 



O. F. WHITNEY 

Secretary 



TOPEKA, KANSAS 
JUNE, 1922 



PRINTED BY KANSAS STATE PRINTING PLANT 

B. P. WALKER, STATE PRINTER 

TOPEKA. 1922 

9-3436 



(^ 






-r CONGRESS 1 



BEEKEEPING IN KANSAS. 

[Dr. J. H. Merrill, assistant professor of entomology at Kansas State Agricultural Col- 
lege, Manhattan, who is also state apiarist, has prepared the following papers, which are of 
much interest to those who keep bees.] 

RACES OF BEES IN KANSAS. 

There are several races of bees found in Kansas. They are principally the 
Black or CJerman bees, Caucasians, Carniolans, Italians, Goldens, and last 
but not least, the hybrids. Each one of these different races has individual 
characteristics, some fxood and some bad. With some of the races the bad 
points overbalance the good, thus making that race unsuitable for honey 
production in our state. 

The Black (or German) bee has probablj' been in this country longer than 
any of the other races. It is commonly spoken of as the nati\e bee, although 
this is not true, as honeybees are not natives of this coimtry. They were 
introduced into New England in 1638, and on account of their long stay 
here have come to be known as native bees. In spite of having been here 
for so long, they are not particularly well adapted to this country. They are 
less prolific than the Italian bees, are very cross, build a great many queen 
cells, and therefore swarm often. They are not very good at cleaning their 
hives or resisting moths. They are not resistant to E\uoi:)ean foul brood, 
which is one of the worst brood diseases of bees. They are very excitable, 
and run wildly about on the combs when the hive is opened. This, together 
with the fact that the queen is not marked differently from the workers, 
makes it very difficult to locate her on the frame. Their good points, how- 
e\'er, are that they cap their honej' white, making a very fine-looking product, 
and are said to stand the winter well. The fact that they have been here 
since 1638 would seem to bear out this point. 

The Caucasian bee varies in color, but closely resembles the black bee. 
It is said that some of them show yellow bands on the abdomen somewhat 
similar to the Italians, but most of them are dark gray with a metallic blue 
cast in the drones. This race of bees has a great manj' good points. They 
have not been in this coimtry \'cry long and h;i\e not been tested as thor- 
oughly as the black bees. They were introduced uito New York in the year 
1880. They are the gentlest rac;e of bees known. They cap their honey 
white, are good workers, defend their hives well against robbers, winter well, 
and, generally speaking, are very desii'able bees. The disadvantage of this 
race of bees is that they use an abimdance of propolis in their hives, some- 
times almost closing entire entrances. In addition to their habit of propo- 
Jizing the hive, they use burr and brace combs lavishl.v. As they closely re- 
semble the black bees in color, it is very hard to tell when they are purely 
mated, and In'brids from this race are not as gentle as the pure bees. A 
great many beekeepers are loud in their praise of the Caucasian race, and 
it may come to find a more prominent place than it now occupies. 

The Carniolans, like the Caucasians, are very gentle bees; and like them 
also, they ha\'e not been tested here long enough for us to know just how 
valuable they are. These bees ai'e dark colored, and when seen in a group 
appear to have a bluish color. However, when examined closely this blui.-h 
color is accounted for by the fact that the wings are iridescent. The body 

(3) 



4 Kansas State Horticultural Society. 

of the Carniolans is more definitely gray than the Caucasians. These bees 
are very proHfic, the queen continuing to lay even after the honey flow has 
ceased. On account of their prolificness they swarm excessively. They are 
very good workers, cap their honey white, and pass the winter well. They do 
not run about on the combs when the hive is opened as do the black bees. 
The most serious facts against them are that they swarm excessively and that 
they resemble the black bee so closely that it is hard to tell when the matings 
are pure. 

The most popular and most successful race of bees in this country is the 
Italian. They combine a great many of the good points of the other races, 
while many of the faults of the others are lacking to a very large extent in 
this popular race of bees. The typical color is for the abdomen to be 
marked with three transverse yellow bands, and are usually spoken of as 
being leather-colored Italians. The workers are the best indication as to the 
purity of the race, as the drones and queens are apt to vary a great deal 
in their color markings. The Italian bees do not cap their honey as white 
as do the three first-named bees, nor are they as prolific as the Caucasians 
and the Carniolans, but they are nuich more so than the German bees. 
They are ordinarily gentle, but even in this respect they do not equal the 
Caucasians or Carniolans. However, they are good workers. They defend 
their hives against robbers and against moths. They are very resistant to 
European foul brood. In fact, whenever this disease occurs the treatment 
recommended is to replace the queen in the diseased colony with an Italian 
queen. The Italian queen will cease brood rearing when there is a dearth 
of nectar, which fact is often ^'aluable, as she will stop producing bees that 
will not take part m any of the work, but merely be consumers. The fact 
that these bees winter well, are of such a good disposition, protect their 
hives from enemies, and especially that they are resistant to foul brood, 
makes them the most satisfactory race of bees that we have in this country, 
and the ones to be recommended generally. 

The Goldens are Italian bees, which are distinguished by having fi\'e bright 
yellow bands on the abdomen instead of three. These bees have a great 
many characteristics of the regular Italian, and resemble them so closety that 
it would be hard to distinguish them from the characteristics of the regular 
three-banded Italian bees. Reports as to their value vary, some reporting 
that they have exceptionally good results from the use of these bees, while 
some claim that their disposition is not pleasant and that they are not 
good workers. Until these bees have been more thoroughly tested it will be 
well to use the standard three-banded Italian bees. 

The so-called hybrid bee may be a cross between any two races, but in 
this country it usually refers to a cross of the black and the Italian. It is 
the one most commonly found in the timber, box hives, or other places 
where the strain has been allowed to deteriorate. These are very variable 
in characters, but mostly they combine a few bad traits of the others, and 
then add a few more bad ones of their own. 

The fortunate thing about beekeeping is that the race of bees in any 
colony can be changed in a short time by killing the original queen and 
introducing another of the desired race. Before long, then, the colony will 
be of the same race as the new queen. 



Beekeeping in Kansas. 5 

PLANT CROPS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE BEES. 

When the owner of a cow wishes to provide sufficient pasturage for this 
animal he can estimate the amount of land that will be required to raise the 
amount of food necessary to provide that cow with nourishment throughout 
the season. Having made this estimate, he can then plant whatever crop he 
decides, put a fence around the pasture, and everything has been provided 
for in the line of food. The fence will keep the cow in the pasture, and at 
the same time will prevent other animals from getting in and taking that 
which was not originally intended for them. However, in the case of providing 
pasturage for bees the question is not so easily solved, for several reasons. 
First, it would be impossible to estimate the exact amount of acreage which 
should be planted in order to provide enough food for any given number of 
bees; second, bees are no respecters of fences, and not only would the bees 
for which the pasturage was intended avail themselves of the opportunity of 
feeding there, but it would be equally open to all other bees in the com- 
munity. In other words, it would not pay to plant crops with the sole idea 
in mind of their ser\^ng as sources for honey. It would be much better in 
locating an apiary to select, if possible, a location which is already provided 
with plants which furnish both nectar and pollen, for it must be borne in 
mind that not only nectar-producing plants are necessary, but we must also 
have pollen-producing plants. In choosing this location one should be careful 
to see that there is a continuation of food supply throughout the summer. If 
there are only one or two honey plants which furnish nectar in any great 
amount it might be that the period between the flows of honey would be so 
long and the honey flows might be so short that the bees would consume during 
the period of drought all of the honey which they stored during the honey flow\ 
It is always possible, however, to improve any location in the matter of honey 
plants, and probably the best way to do this would be to join with the 
farmers in that community and encourage them to plant forage-crop plants 
that will at the same time furnish nectar. Prominent among this class of 
plants would be alfalfa, clover, sweet clover, alsike and buckwheat, because 
plants should serve a dual purpose of being both forage and honey plants. 
The beekeeper who would contribute toward the purchase of seed to encourage 
his neighbors in the planting of these dual-purpose crops would be well paid 
for his investment. 

Some of the sources of honey which particularly apply to Kansas are, in 
the early spring, the elm trees, which furnish pollen, while the soft maples 
furnish both nectar and pollen. These are followed by the dandelion, which 
is one of the most valuable plants from the beekeepers' standpoint that we 
have, because it blooms so early in the spring and furnishes an abundance of 
pollen, which is so necessary for brood rearing. The fruit bloom in those 
sections of the state where fruit is produced furnishes nectar for brood rearing. 
Most of the nectar furnished by this class of flowers is consumed in rearing 
brood, and it is rare that any surplus is stored from this source. After the 
fruit bloom comes the white clover bloom in those parts of the state where 
clover is found. This is a very valuable source of nectar, and it is at this time 
that the beekeeper should put on his supers, so as to allow the bees to store 
the large surplus which they should gather from white clover. Of the sweet 



6 Kansas State Horticultural Society. 

clovers, the yellow sweet clover blooms about three weeks earlier than the 
white sweet clover, and in a great many parts of the state there is a dearth of 
bloom between the time of the appearing of the fruit bloom and the white 
sweet-clover bloom. Those sections, however, where the yellow sweet clover is 
found do not suffer from this dearth. Consequently, beekeepers should urge 
and assist in seeing that all the waste places in their neighborhood are sowed 
to j^ellow sweet clover seed. It is possible to purchase this seed individually, 
or, better still, to secure the seed through your local beekeepers' association; 
then at the meeting of the association plans can be made for sowing different 
portions of the country, that the seed may be wisely distributed. The white 
sweet clover which is found so plentiful along the roadsides and waste places 
throughout the state is valuable, if not the most valuable honey plant that we 
have. As white sweet clover has proved to be a valuable forage plant, every- 
thing possible should be done to encourage its wider and more abundant dis- 
tribution. Alfalfa does not produce honey everywhere that it is grown. In 
the drier sections of the country, and especially irrigated portions, it is an 
abundant producer of nectar. However, in the more humid sections it does 
not yield any nectar. Wherever alfalfa will not yield nectar, alsike clover 
should be grown and will be found valuable both as a forage plant and as a 
nectar-producing plant. Corn, although it probably does not produce any nec- 
tar, is very valuable as a pollen-producing plant. 

The foregoing plants are the ones from which our chief source of light 
honey is produced. In the fall of the year heartsease, asters and other fall- 
blooming plants usually produce an abundance of nectar. The amount that 
will be secured from a fall flow cannot be securely counted on because of the 
danger of an early frost. The heartsease honey varies in color in various parts 
of the country. In some places it is light, while in other places it is very dark. 
Heartsease does not need to be planted, neither do asters, as they will appear 
themselves in sufficiently large quantities to be of use if the season is at all 
favorable. 

It has been estimated that in order to produce one pound of honey it is 
necessary for a bee to make several hundred thousand trips to the field. This, 
of course, means that a large number of plants must be visited in order to bring 
in a single pound of honey, and it will be seen that it would not be profitable 
to sow crops solely for the nectar which they would produce. However, as 
stated above, if the nectar-producing plants can also be used as forage crops, 
then the.y will be useful to both the stockman and the beekeeper. 

MAKING MILK OUT OF HONEY. 

What would be thought of a cow that could be bought for $40 which 
would provide two quarts of milk daily and two quarts extra for every Sun- 
day in the year? In addition to providing this milk, it must be put into 
glass jars and delivered at the door. I do not own such a cow, nor do I 
beheve anyone else does. .However, I do own four colonies of bees valued at 
$40, which produced enough honey to purchase the amount of milk above 
named. The comparison might be carried still further and mention made of 
the fact that the bees went to pasture and returned unattended; there was 
no pasture rent to pay for them, and instead of it being necessary to pur- 
chase expensive grain for their winter feed, they brought. home and put away 



Beekeeping in Kansas. 7 

enough footl themselves to last them all winter, besides storing a surplus for 
my benefit. A man may capture a stray swarm of bees, put them in a hive, 
and call them his own, but he could not do the same with stray cattle and 
still be a law-abiding citi en. 

These four colonies of bees had nothing to boast of in the line of an- 
cestors. In fact, two of them were stray swarms which were caught and 
hi\-ed, while the other two were purchased at $6.50 per colony. The fact that 
I valued them at $10 per colony in the spring is not because they had cost me 
that much, but because that would probably have been the selling pi'ice at 
that time. 

Early in August all four of the old queens were removed and young, un- 
tested queens — so called because they were so young their progeny had never 
been tested as to the purity of their race — were introduced. The reason for 
requeening at this time of the year was because the two queens in the pur- 
chased colonies were of uncertain age, while I knew that the queens in the 
colonies which were caught as swarms must have been old queens, as it is 
always the old queen that leaves with a swarm. Consequently I wanted to 
have queens all of the same age, and August was the most desirable time 
of the year to do this n queening. A young queen introduced into a colony at 
this time would insure a large number of young bees before the colony went 
into winter cjuarters. No honey was removed from these colonies during the 
first year, as the honey flow that year was not particularly heavy and I 
wanted to be sure that each colony of bees had enough honey left them to 
last until the next honey flow began. Accordingly, forty to forty-five pounds 
of stores were left in each hive for the bees to consume during the winter. 

When choosing a location for my bees I selected the south side of a dense 
hedge windbreak, as I considered such a windbreak would be better than 
a solid board fence. Immediately after the first frost I began to pack them 
for the winter. The reason for putting on the packing was because bees are 
like storage batteries, having just so much energy to expend, after which they 
die. During the winter the bees form a hollow cluster in the hive as soon 
as the temperature falls to 57 degrees. On the inside of this cluster will be 
found a number of bees fanning the air and performing other muscular 
exertions so as to raise the temperature of the hive. From time to time 
they go to the outside of the cluster and other bees come in and take up the 
work of maintaining the high temperature. The more of this work they have 
to do the quicker they wear out. The young bees which I secured in such 
large numbers by introducing young queens in August had the advantage 
over old bees in that they had enough energy to maintain the proper temper- 
atiu'e of the hive and still be able to take part in the heavy work of sjiring 
brooil rearing. The reason for the insulation was to help the bees retain this 
desired temperature with a minimum expenditure of energy. The hives were 
placed on hive stands about seven inches high, which had been previously 
packed with leaves. As this was a good, strong colony of bees and I wanted 
them to have plenty of room for spring brood rearing, two hive bodies were 
provided for each colonj^. On toji of each upper hive body a queen excluder 
was placed, and on this a super with burlap tacked over the bottom. This 
super was then filled with dry forest leaves. Next a two-foot poultry netting 
with two-inch mesh was placed around the hive, which extended out eight 



8 Kansas State Horticultural Society. 

inches from it, and leaves were pushed down between the poultry netting 
and the hive and packed in firmly. Of course I left an opening in the front 
for the bees to come out whenever they desired to take a flight. After these 
preparations were finished I felt quite satisfied and had no fears as to whether 
my bees would successfully winter. I knew there was an abundance of bees 
in each hive and that each had forty to forty-five pounds of stores left, that 
they were wintered in two stories, so they had plenty of room for spring 
brood rearing, and that they were protected not only by being well packed 
but by being placed in the shelter of a dense windbreak. 

Having taken all of these precautions in the fall, the question of spring 
management of my bees was reduced to a minimum. I knew they had 
honey enough and room enough, and I could tell from the number of young 
bees flying in front of the hives that each one must have a queen, consequently 
I was able to postpone the first examination until very late in the spring, 
thus eliminating a lot of needless and really harmful manipulation. 

Just before the honey flow began these colonies were examined carefully 
and several frames of brood were found in each colony. As young bees were 
emerging very rapidly, they were beginning to crowd the brood chambers, 
thus bringing about a condition which would ordinarily cause swarming. In 
order to prevent this the queen was located in each colony, placed on one 
frame of brood, and confined to the lower brood chamber by a queen excluder. 
The rest of the brood was placed in the upper story above the excluder. The 
queen was now confined to the lower story with only one frame of brood and 
had plenty of room for egg laying. The fact that the brood chamber was 
no longer crowded by young bees stimulated the field bees to become more 
active. When the weather became warm the hives were blocked up so that 
they might be more easily ventilated, which also had a tendency to prevent 
swarming. As the queens were very vigorous and filled the frames in the 
brood chamber with brood, it was necessary to repeat this plan of separating 
the queen from the brood several times during the summer. Our main honey 
flow in the vicinity of Manhattan comes from alfalfa and sweet clover, and 
the honey from these two sources is light in color, good in quality and com- 
mands a good price. During the fall heartsease blooms abundantly. Hearts- 
ease honey is a very satisfactory honey for the bees to pass the winter on, but 
in this locality it is dark colored and strong to the taste; consequently it will 
not bring as good a price as either alfalfa or sweet-clover honey. During the 
summer I removed the alfalfa and sweet-clover honey and sold it, and left 
the bees all of the heartsease honey which they had stored. The total crop 
from these four colonies of bees was over 400 pounds, which sold for $125. 
This sum of money invested in milk at 15 cents a quart would purchase the 
amount of milk mentioned in the opening paragraph. 

SPRING CARE OF BEES. 

The proper time to begin preparing for the spring care of bees is in August 
of the preceding year, because it is then that a new queen should be intro- 
duced in order to insure a large number of young bees to successfully pass 
the winter. Young bees are able to undergo the hardships of winter and still 
retain enough energy to carry on the heavy duties of spring brood rearing. 

During the month of September, or just after the first frost, it is the duty 



Beekeeping in Kansas. 9 

of the beekeeper to see that the bees have plenty of stores. By plenty of 
stores is not meant only sufficient food to carry them through until the elms 
and maples bloom in the spring, but enough to last until the honey flow be- 
gins. This means, for Kansas, about forty pounds of honey to each colony. 
It may be objected here that it is too late now to do these things. This 
is very true, but now is a \-ery good time to call attention to the fact that 
the spring care of bees would have been much simplified had these things 
been attended to last year, and in planning next years work these things 
should be done. 

Those who have not followed the above suggestions should examine their 
colonies on the first warm day, with two purposes in mind: first, to see if they 
are queenless; and second, to ascertain the amount of stores in the hive. If 
the colony is queenless it would be better to unite it with a queen-right 
colony, because, although it is possible to purchase queens from the South 
at this time of the year, their delivery is apt to be delayed, and the colony 
grow weaker while you are waiting for the queens. If the stores are found 
to be insufficient, then a thick syrup made of two parts of sugar to one part 
of water, by measure, should be fed to the bees. 

Great quantities of food are necessary during brood rearing, and not only 
food, but water; therefore, watering places should be provided near every bee 
yard. These are of many patterns, the chief requisite being that the bees get 
water from them without drowning. A tub or vessel filled with water, with 
a Ijt of chips or pieces of broken cork floating on the surface will make a 
suitable drinking place. 

If some of the colonies are found to be weak, even though they may have 
a queen, it will be best to unite the weak colonies, but always combine a 
weak one with a stronger one. It is practically impossible for the weak 
colony to become strong in time to materially assist in the gathering of the 
honey crop. However, if the weak colom' is added to the strong colony it 
will increase the honey-gathering force of the latter that it may increase the 
surplus yield. Later, after the honey flow is over, the colonies may be 
divided if you wish to keep the same number of colonies that you had in 
the spring. Those who have had plenty of stores in their hives and were 
sure that their queens were good in the fall, and have their bees packed well 
for the winter, need be in no hurry to remove the packing, provided they 
have left sufficient room for spring brood rearing, because the packing ma- 
terial will protect the colonies during the cold nights which are apt to come 
between now and the beginning of the honey flow. 

THE NECESSITY OF WINTER PROTECTION FOR BEES. 

In order to obtain large crops of honey it is necessary to have large colonies 
ready to go to the field at the beginning of the nectar flow. It is essential 
in order to secure those large colonies that they pass through the winter with 
as little loss in their working force as possible. Bees, like storage batteries, 
have a certain amount of energy, which when once expended means the death 
of the bees. In order to have a large working force in the spring all pre- 
cautions should be taken that will enable the bees to pass through the winter 
with a minimum expenditure of energy. This energy is used by the bees in 
the winter in maintaining the proper temperature in the hive. As bees are 



10 ' Kansas State Horticultural Society. 

cold-blooded insects and do not give off heat, they maintain the proper tem- 
perature by consuming honey and by muscular exertions. Both of these 
processes consume energy and shorten the life of the bees. 

Winter protection reduces the work necessary to maintain the proper tem- 
perature, and therefore will result in a larger colony of bees in the spring, 
which will possess a much more unexpended energy to carry on the spring 
work of brood rearing, that there may be a large working force ready for 
the nectar flow when it starts. 

In order to ascertain whether or not winter protection is Aaluable, experi- 
ments have been carried on at the Kansas State Agricultural College in which 
two sets of three hives each are used. One set of these hivjes is placed out in 
the open where it is not protected by any windbreak, while the other set is 
protected by a dense windbreak of shrubbery. In each set of the three h'.ves, 
each hive is wintered under different conditions. There is one one-story hive, 
one two-story hive, and one packed hive in each set. All of these hives are 
placed on scales and daily readings are taken of the change in weights. In 
the fall of the year when the bees are placed in winter quarters the amount 
of honey in each hive is ascertained, also the exact weight of the bees in each 
hive. As the number of bees in a pound is variously estimated at about 5,000, 
for the purpose of this experiment this will be the number used. As the 
number of bees in the hive ready for work on the day that the nectar flow 
starts is a good test of how they have wintered, the weight of the bees is 
again taken in the spring of the year on the date when the nectar flow begins. 
A's a result of these weighings it was found that the one-story hive which 
was unprotected had in the spring 11,718 bees, while the two-story hive, imder 
similar conditions, had 16,406, and the packed hive had 36.718, or 25,000 
more bees than were in the one-story h ve. As bees are now selling for $2.50 
a pound, this would make a difference of $12.50 between the packed hive and 
the unpacked hive. The same was found to be true in those bees which were 
protected by a windbreak. The one-story hive had 14,063 bees, while the 
two-story hive had 20,936 and the ]jacked hive had 36.594. A comparison of 
the number of bees in the hives protected by the windbreak and those not 
protected shows a difference of about 2,500 bees in the one-story hive and 
over 4,000 in the two-story hive, which gives a very good indication of the 
value of a windbreak over no windbreak. In the packed hive the value of 
the windbreak is not as striking as that in the unpacked hive, which was 
reasonably to be expected. A theory which has long been held and frequently 
preached in Kansas is that there is no need of winter protection in this state, 
because we have open winters. The winter of 1917-'18 was called a severe 
winter, while that of 1918-"19 was known as an open winter. The following 
facts will show very clearly that this theory of not needing packing on 
account of an open winter is a myth and a dangerous one at that, as the 
open winter is much more severe on bees than a severe winter. A comparison 
between the number of bees in the hives in the spring with the number in 
the fall shows that in 1917-'18, which was a severe winter, there were 332 less 
bees in the one-story hive which was not protected by the windbreak, while 
in the hive similarly placed during the open winter of 1918-"19 there were 
3,282, or about ten times as many. In 1917-'18 the two-story hive without a 
windbreak gained 2,806 bees, while in the open winter there were 469 less bees 



Beekeeping in Kansas. 11 

in the spring than in the fall. In those hives protected by a windbreak the 
one-story hive in the winter of 1917-'18 gained 4,538, and only 313 during the 
open winter. The two-story hive protected by the windbreak gained 13,346 
during the severe winter, while a hive similarly' placed gained only 5,936 during 
the open winter. 

The figures given above show very conclusively three things: First, that 
a windbreak is of great value in properly protecting bees for the winter; 
second, that the open winter causes a greater loss in the bees than does a 
severe winter; and third, it shows above all things that packing is most 
essential to good wintering conditions, and proves clearly that winter pro- 
tection is necessary in order to have a strong colony of bees ready for the 
nectar flow in the spring. 

METHODS FOR WINTERING BEES. 

There are several essentials to good wintering, among which the most im- 
portant are: First, to have plenty of young bees in the hive in the fall of 
the year; second, to have plenty of stores; third, to have the bees protected 
by a good windbreak; fourth, to have the hive well packed with an insulating 
material ; and fifth, to have jjlenty of room for spring brocd rearing. If these 
essentials are attended to the colony slioukl winter in good shape to be ready 
to take an acti\-e part in spring brood rearing, and to insure a good, strong 
colony of bees to take advantage of the nectar flow when it starts. The 
necessity of having a large number of bees is that they will be able to main- 
tain the jiroper temperature of the hive by muscular exertion during the 
winter and yet have enough energy in the spring to take up the spring duties 
in tiie colony. In order to have a large number of young bees in the hive, 
one of the best ways to be certain of this is to requecn during the month of 
August with a young queen. Such a queen will be more apt to raise a lot 
of young bees than an older queen, and another thing in her favor is that 
she will be less likely to swarm during the following season. 

The proper amount of stores per colonj' for Kansas is about thirty-five to 
forty pounds. Sufficient stores should be left to feed the colony until the 
nectar flow actually starts in the spring. It is not enough just to leave suffi- 
cient honey to feed them until the maples and elms bloom in the spring, be- 
cause this time is very apt to be followed by a period of bad weather or a 
dearth in honey, and although a colony may be strong at this time, a short- 
age of stores may cause their death before the real nectar flow begins. If at 
the time of putting colonies into winter they do not have a sufficient amount 
of stores they should be fed sugar syrup made at the rate of two parts of 
sugar to one of water, by measure. Enough of this sugar syrup shoidd be fed 
to bring their stores to the required amount. 

For a protection from the wind a good hedge or some shrubs will furnish 
the ideal conditions. A solid windbreak is to be avoided at all times. If 
the bees are placed near a solid board fence or a solid board windbreak, 
better results will be obtained if every other board is removed. When a solid 
windbreak is used a current of air passes over its top and then down directly 
to the hive. 

The single-walled hives which are commonly used do not give sufficient 
protection from the cold, and these should be packed with some insulating 



12 Kansas State Horticultural Society. 

material. A hive may be placed singly in a packing box, or they may be put 
in groups of four, with two of the entrances facing to the east and two to the 
west. Four inches of packing should be placed beneath the hives, six inches 
on the sides, and eight inches on the top. Tunnels should be made to the 
exterior so that the bees can pass out for flight. Packing should be put on 
after the first frost, and a good insvilating material will be ground cork, leaves, 
chaff, shavings or sawdust, packed tightly around the hives. Another method 
of packing is to place poultry netting with two-inch mesh around the hive, 
allowing it to protrude about six inches all the way round, and pack between 
this and the hives with leaves. More leaves should be stuffed beneath the 
hive, and a super filled with leaves placed on top. Th's last form of packing 
gives good winter protection, is easy to prepare, and costs but little. 

Plenty of room for spring brood rearing may be given by using a two- 
story hive for wintering purposes, as the queen will then have much more 
room than if confined to a single story. However, two-story h'ves are not 
always satisfactory, and it really would be better to winter bees in one of the 
larger hives, such as the Dadant hive or the Jumbo hive, because instead of 
having a break between the upper and lower hive bodies there would be one 
continuous sheet of comb between the bottom bar and the top bar, which 
would give more ideal conditions for brood rearing than if the queen were 
obliged to pass over the obstructions which would be found in going from one 
hive to the other. She would pass up from the lower hive body to the uj^per 
much quicker than she would go back down. The obstructions in the way of 
her passing would act as a natural queen excluder. 

To sum up, a young queen should be introduced in August to insure plenty 
of young bees, then winter packing should be applied immediately after the 
first killing frost, and if the hives are so placed that they are protected from 
the wind, with plenty of stores and plenty of room for spring brood rearing, 
there is no reason why large colonies of bees should not result from this 
practice. In order to get more honey from a colony we must have more bees 
in it, and every effort of the beekeeper which produces more bees at the 
right time means more money in his pocket. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF WINTER STORES. 

The Kansas State Agricultural College is conducting at the Experiment 
Station a test to determine the best form of a winter protection for bees. 

The value of a windbreak, the superiority of a two-story over a one-story 
hive for wintering and the value of packing are clearly shown. During the 
winter of 1919-'20 this experiment was continued, and when on the 19th of 
May the bees were weighed to determine which form of wintering had been 
best for them, some additional factors were found to have entered into the 
experiment that were not present in the first two years' work. These 
bees were placed in winter quarters on October 4, 1919, with a known 
amount of honey and a known number of bees in each hive. Sufficient stores 
were left in each colony to feed them through any ordinary winter and to the 
beginning of the nectar flow. On the 5th of April the temperature at Man- 
hattan dropped to five degrees above zero. This low temperature was accom- 
panied by a heavy snowstorm. As a consequence of this unseasonable weather 
the flowers on which the bees would ordinarily depend for spring food were 



Beekeeping in Kansas. 13 

killed, consequently they were forced to exist on the stores which were left 
in the hives in the fall. One colony between October 4 and May 19 con- 
sumed 52% pounds of honey, after which it was fed two half-filled frames of 
honey and six pounds of sugar. This will explain why some of the colonies 
became short on stores before they were weighed in the spring. 

During the winter daily weights were taken and recorded. On the 19th 
of May, 1920. the number of bees, the amount of brood and the amount of 
honey were again determined. This date is two weeks later than the one on 
which the bees were weighed in 1918-19. and each colony should have shown 
several thousand more bees this year on the 19th of May than it did last 
year on the 4th of May. In 1918-'19 the one-story unpacked hive in the 
windbreak gained 313 bees, while the packed hive in the windbreak gained 
24.844; but during 1919- '20 the one-story unpacked hive in the windbreak 
gained 10,000, while the packed hive, similarly placed, gained only 3,700. In 
1918-"19 the two-story hive in the windbreak gained 5,936, whereas in 1920 
it gained 8.125. These results would seem to overthrow any evidence that we 
may have had in the past as to the value of winter protection, especially 
when we consider the fact that the packed hive in 1918-'19 had 24,331 more 
bees than the unpacked hive, while in 1919-'20 it had 6,300 le.ss. This would 
seem to indicate that the packing had not been of any great value to it, es- 
pecially when the unpacked one-story hive had five frames of brood, wh le 
the packed hive had only three frames. Had it not been for the fact that 
daily records of the changes of weights were kept, those results would have 
been very disconcerting, and extremely hard to account for, but upon turning 
to the daily record we found that on April 20 the packed hive reached its 
lowest weight. From then until the 19th of May the gains and losses ranged 
from nothing up to an eighth of a pound, showing that on April 20 the winter 
stores were exhausted in that colony, and from that time forward they were 
barely able to secure enough nectar from the field to even maintain the 
existence of the colony. On the 19th of May, when the colony was weighed, 
no honey at all was found in the jiacked hive, while in the one-story unpacked 
hive there remained three and one-half pounds of unconsumed stores. The 
unpacked hive had five frames of brood, whereas the packed hive had only 
about three. To all ordinary appearances the packed hive was a good, strong 
colony of bees on the 19th of May, and anyone would have been justified in 
thinking that it had wintered well. However, when the fact is taken into 
consideration that during the previous year this colony gained 24,844 bees be- 
tween the fall and spring, and this year only gained 3,700, we can see that 
something was radically wrong. As the one-story unpacked hive contained 
five frames of brood, while the packed hive only had three frames, we can 
understand why this weakened condition was brought about. On the 19th of 
April, when the stores were exhausted, the queen in the packed hive did not 
lay as many eggs as the one in the unpacked hive. To all appearances this 
colony had wintered well, yet when we consider that the date of weighing 
was two weeks later than the previous year, and that during these two weeks 
the queen should have deposited from 30,000 to 40,000 eggs, which would 
have filled six to eight frames of brood, when as a matter of fact it only had 
three frames, it showed plainly that the queen was seriously affected by the 
shortage of stores. Had we not the daily records of the changes in weights 



14 Kansas State Horticultural Society. 

in these colonies we would never have known why this colony did so poorly. 
Although in this article I have spoken of one colony, the same fact holds true 
for the -rest of the colonies which became low in stores. 

When the one-story unpacked hive in the windbreak is compared with the 
one-story unpacked hive in the open, the odds in the number of bees gained 
and in the amount of brood are largely in favor of the one protected by a 
windbreak. Both of these hives had unconsumed stores when the spring 
weighing was made, but the hive in the windbreak had consumed nine pounds 
more than the one in the open, which it had used in brood rearing. The one 
in the windbreak had five frames of brood and gained 10,000 bees, while the 
one in the open only had 3% frames of brood and gained 575. The fact that 
the packed hive in the open gained more than the unpacked hive in the 
open, both in number of bees and the amount of brood, demonstrated that 
with other things being equal, packing was of a distinct advantage. Here 
again was shown the value of a windbreak over no windbreak, and, as in the 
open, the two-story unpacked hive gained 8.000 more bees than the one-story 
unpacked hive, the superiority of the large hive over the small one for winter- 
ing was shown. The superiority of the packed hive over the unpacked hive in 
the open again showed the value of winter protection. 

Some valuable deductions can be made from these results, some of which 
are: When a colony has insufficient stores, even though it may apparently 
winter well, yet the queen will so far slow down in her work as to seriously 
weaken the colony far below the strength that it would have been had it 
been supplied with sufficient stores. Mr. Crane's statement that if bees arc 
supplied with plenty of honey "they can stand almost any cold for a time," 
and also his contention that without stores winter packing will not save them, 
are both strikingly borne out by the above-named figures. When considering 
the question of wintering bees too much emphasis should not be placed on any 
one feature of wintering. We know that we must have a large number of 
the young bees, that we must have plenty of winter stores, and also that if 
we can give our bees the added value of a windbreak and winter protection 
it will well repay us; but no beekeeper should rely on any one of these factors 
alone and expect to get the very best results. They are all necessary. 

REMOVING THE HONEY CROP. 

Honey is ordinarily produced either in the form known as comb honey or 
extracted honey, and the method to be followed in removing the crop will 
depend upon which kind of honey is being produced. 

The proper time to remove comb honey from the hive is when all of the 
cells are sealed over, or when the honey flow is over for the season. 

As comb honey depends largely upon its fine appearance, great care should 
be taken to prepare this honey for the market is as pleasing a manner as 
possible. First, the propolis and other foreign materials should be scraped 
from the sections, after which their appearance will be greatly improved if 
they are rubbed lightly with sandpaper. After the sections have been 
thoroughly cleaned they should be graded and packed in the shipping cases 
for market. The sections may be graded according to the rules adopted 
either by the National Beekeepers' Association or by the Colorado rules. 
Whichever system of grading is used, care should be taken to make sure that 



Comb Honey. 15 

all of the sections in one case are of one grade, and that that grade is the 
one under which they are to be sold. 

Extracted honey may be removed from the hive when the cells in the 
extracting frame are two-thirds capped over, because at this time the honey 
will be sufficiently ripened to be removed from the hive. It formerly was a 
custom to cut out the wax and squeeze it through a strainer of some sort, the 
product being called "strained honey." Now, however, since the invention 
of the honey extractor, the cappings are cut from the cells with a sharp knife, 
and the frames are i)laced in the basket of the extractor and whirled rapidly, 
the honey being thrown out of the cells by the action of centrifugal force. 
The cappings which have been removed from the cells may be placed in a 
wire basket and allowed to drain, as considerable honey will be found to have 
adhered to thrm, or they may be cut off directly into a capping melter, which 
is so arranged that the cappings melt and pass out at the front of the melter, 
together with the honey. The combination of melted honey and wax is 
caught in a container and allowed to remain until cool, when it will be found 
that the wax has risen to the top and the honey may be drawn off and sold. 

Extracted honey apjiears on the market in various-sized containers, from 
the small-sized glass jar to the 60-pound can. The beekeeper will have to 
decide for himself wh'ch size he will use, and this will depend upon the 
market to which he caters. 



COMB HONEY. 

Fl!ANK Hill, Sal)ftl!a. 



My first attempt at honey production was a try for comb honey. In fact, 
I did not know that there was such a thing as extracfed honey. I had seen 
but few bees, just scattered little apiaries of a few colonies each, and all that 
the owners of them attempted was the getting of a little comb honey. The 
first colony of bees I owned was a swarm that lit on a peach tree in our 
yard, and I furnished a hive and a neighbor hived them for me. I had been 
interested in bees before, and the fact that I was now owner of a colony 
renewed that interest. I began to get literature on the subject, and most of 
it came from A. I. Root Company. The Root company at that time was 
booming the Danzenbaker hive for the production of comb honey, and after 
that first colony my bees were housed in the Dan enbaker hive, which, by 
the way, seems to be obsolete now. You see that comb honey was my idea. 

In tiie literature which I read I found that the big men of the bee business 
were writing on how to produce comb honey. The idea was to produce fine, 
fancy comb honey. The idea got hold of me that it required a good bee 
man with knowledge of the business to produce a fine article of comb honey. 
I had, of course, found out by this time that there was such a thing as ex- 
tracted honey, but it did not appeal to me in the least. I therefore went in 
for comb honey, and- did my best, as I have done every year since, to produce 
just as fine and fancy a crop of comb honey as I possibly could. Some years 
I have not produced a single section, but that has been the fault of the 
season more than my fault. 



16 Kansas State Horticultural Society. 

There are other reasons why I try for comb honey. The difficulty one 
contends with in its production makes it a sort of sporting proposition that 
appeals to me. If some one else can do a thing that I want to do, and he 
does it successfully, I want to do it or know just what that fellow knows that 
I do not know. I am not different in this from other men. The fact that an 
object is a little difficult to obtain makes most of us want it more. And there 
is no doubt about it being more difficult and that it requires a better informed 
bee man to produce marketable comb honey than it does to produce ex- 
tracted honey. 

I am also willing to agree with some men who say that there is a desirable 
fla\or in comb honey that is not in extracted honey. I am unable to say why. 
And I am also convinced that there is some sort of a chemical difference. For 
instance, this winter while getting my comb-honey supers ready for the bees 
I found several half-filled sections of honey. Part were sealed and part un- 
sealed. The sealed and the unsealed were both liquid, while that which 
was extracted last fall was long ago crystallized hard. Those partly filled 
sections were simply delicious and had a distinctlj' different flavor from the 
extracted honey made the same season and extracted last fall. 

Then the beauty of the product appeals to me also. It is actually a 
pleasure to me to open supers of fine comb honey, scrape them clean, put 
them in the shipping case, stamp their net weight, nail them up and put them 
in tiers, glass side out, that I can see the whole tier. It looks good to other 
people also. I do not believe any person ever came into my shop while I 
had comb honey in sight who did not remark upon the beauty of the product. 
Now, I really enjoy doing anything with bees, with the possible exception of 
twisting an extractor or feeding a large number of robbing colonies in the late 
fall. I can work longer without getting tired, and enjoy about every minute 
of it, in working with or packing comb honey. 

There is another reason why I produce comb honey if I can, and that is. 
it is easy to sell and has always sold for a good price. If one has, say, 100 
cases of comb honey to sell in September it makes a nice bunch of money 
coming in at a time when I am likely to be broke or at the breaking point, 
and a check which that much comb honey brings in looks good to me at any 
time ; but when one begins to feel as if something was wrong with one's finan- 
ces, and a check for from $500 to $700 comes in it does something towards roll- 
ing the dark clouds away, believe me. For instance, last summer was a mighty 
poor honey year for me, but I managed to induce the bees to produce 260 
cases of comb honey. One hundred cases were sold at $6 per case and the 
balance I got $6.25 for, delivered at the river. That brought $1,600, less the 
freight, and I had it all during the first week in September. There are dozens 
of people in my own little town who will not buy extracted honey, but do 
buy comb honey. They are people who do not think the extracted adulter- 
ated, either; they simply prefer comb honey. The cities are full of people 
who do not consider extracted honey at all, and a lot of them know nothing 
about any honey but comb honey, and as a rule they are people who are 
able and willing to pay more for it than they would for extracted honey. 
They should pay more, I think; as a general thing they should pay about 
twice as much per pound, considering a section a pound, as they should pay 
for extracted honey. Comb honey is the product of a specialist, in a way. 



Comb Honey. 17 

The very best colonies are required to produce it; it is produced from the 
best sources. In many places the crop is very uncertain, and it requires more 
work and material to get it ready for market. 

The cost of producing comb honey compared with the cost of producing 
extracted honey is rather hard to compute. It has been estimated that a 
given colony of bees will i)roduce something like twice as much extracted 
honey as it will comb honey. I doubt that, if the comb-honey producer does 
his duty. I am satisfied that more extracted honey will be produced, es- 
pecially if the bees have combs already drawn. If the bees are placed on 
full sheets of foundation, the difference will be a little, but just a little, in 
favor of the extracted-honey bees; but given good, strong colonies and a 
good flow, with some drawn comb in the comb-honey supers, I believe that 
the difference will be very little. The difference, I think, will be that the 
bees will ha\e to build up to the wood in the sections, and they usually leave 
a little depression where the combs join the wood, while the bees on Hoffman 
frames build solid, and of course will make the heaviest cembs. In short, I 
think the bees will build nearly as rapidly in a properly prepared super as 
they will in a Hoffman frame, both being prepared with full sheets of founda- 
tion. A frame of solid honey will weigh more, of course, than will a section 
holder of four sections of the same dimensions, because -the depression next 
the wood takes off a little and the wood where the sections join takes up a 
little space. But comb honey is not sold by the pound; it is sold by the one 
or two dozen sections. I have never had a buyer complain of honey that 
weighed as much as eleven ounces net. I have had them ask me if the honey 
was heavy before they bought, and of course heavy, well-filled sections are to 
be preferred, but I have never been asked to cut the price on account of the 
weight. I will say here tliat I believe the average section I produce will 
weight about I2V2 oimces net. I have shipped considerable honey weighing 
ten ounces net, but have voluntarily taken one dollar per case off the price. 
I do not believe, as a matter of fact, that a cent was taken off the price when 
it was retailed. It costs more to produce comb honey than it does extracted 
honey, because of the sections and foundation that must be furnished every 
crop, and to this must be added the cost of shipping cases and crates in 
which the shipping cases are packed. Last fall it cost me for material for 
a case of comb honey as follows: 

Shipping case $0.35 

Sections 211/2 

Foundatidn 11^/4 

Crates ((ine-sixtli of the cost of a crate liohling 6 cases) 20 

Total $0.88 

The whole cost being 88 cents for the material to get a case of comb honey 
ready for market. Calling a section a pound would make the case of honey 
comparable to 24 pounds of extracted honey. To make the figures even 
we will say the case weighs 20 pounds, which it will weigh. To get 20 pounds 
of extracted honey ready to sell it must be packed in, say, the 5-pound pail. 
When cost and freight are added, a S-j^ound pail will cost, or did cost me, 
about 9 cents each, four 5-pound pails costing 36 cents. Say one can sell 
the 5-pound pail for $1, making the 20 pounds bring $4. The difference is 



18 Kcmsas State Horticultural Society. 

that I sold the 20 pounds of comb honey at $6.25 with an expense of 88 cents, 
leaving a profit of $5.37 to me. You see I have a difference of $1.82 to pay me 
for the extra trouble in getting supers ready and the extra trouble it requires 
in working the bees. One thing to take into account in favor of comb honey 
is the taking care of extracting combs. They must be either put back on the 
bees or thoroughly treated to kill and prevent the wax moth from destroying 
them. It does not cost qu^te as much per pound to pack extracted honey in 
60-pound cans, but the price per pound for it in that size package is nearly 
always less. It can be seen that even if the bees do not produce as much 
comb honey as they do extracted, the price averages, or has averaged with me, 
about two-thirds more. The prices I quote are the highest I received for 
both kinds this last year. The work of getting the supers ready, folding the 
sections, putting in the foundation, etc., comes in the winter when a little 
work is welcomed, and I would rather have it to do then than not. It is 
mighty bad business for a bee man who has as many as say 100 comb-honey 
supers to get ready to wait till he sees whether there is going to be a crop or 
not. It requires too much time, and the bees will not wait for anything, and 
it iiays to have everything all ready. 

Now, as to handling bees to jiroduce honey, there are, I believe, almost 
as many systems as there are men. There are plenty of books, and good, 
well-written books, by men who have had experience and know the game. If 
I haven't read them all it is because I have not been able to get them. I am 
not going to attempt to tell you how it should be done. You can get books 
that will tell you that. I will try to tell you how I work, and the plan may 
or niaj' not suu >'<)U 

My bees are all in outyards. I have more than 400 colonies, and they are 
all in the country, or will be in the spring, but a dozen or so that I keep at 
home to raise queens with and help with increase there. You see that any 
intensive plan such as you will find in Doctor Millers "Fifty Years Among 
the Bees" is out of the question. First I will tell you why my bees are in 
small outyards. My location is a good one, providing it rains enough, which 
it does not often do. But very often one locality just a few miles away 
will get one or two rains in one season that another location will not get. I 
have had one or two yards give me a fair crop, while others in the same 
season had to be fed for winter. A rain makes a big difference. My bees 
are in eight yards of from thirty-four to sixty colonies each. My bees are 
wintered — or that is what I try to do — in two hive bodies. I use ten-frame 
hives. If they should be wintered on one set of combs I put another set on 
in the spring when I unpack them. They then have plenty of room for 
almost any kind of a queen. I clip all queens in the spring, and try to get 
it done during fruit bloom. Then an inventory of the hives is taken and the 
condition of the colonies is marked on the hives. One can devise any way to 
do this that suits. When I clip a queen I put an X on some part of the 
hive, with the date. When I find a clipped queen I put an O there. When I 
find no queen I put a QX there, so I know where to find them with a new 
queen. At that time a colony must have plenty of stores to sustain it until 
the flow. After the stores are supplied and the requeening is done, they are 
left till they begin to build up pretty strong. Then I inspect and see that 



Comb Honey. 19 

there are no queens confined in one hi^•e body. Sometimes a queen may be 
in the upper body and never seems to find the lower one at all. All I do is to 
reverse the bodies, putting her below, and she is sure to go up. I usually see 
that the queen is in the top body in the spring, as it is warmer, hence this 
last manipulation. The bees are not disturbed till nectar begins to come in 
rather freely from white clo\er, and if that misses out, till sweet clover. When 
nectar is coming in and the best colonies have the combs well covered with 
bees, I put the queen below with three or four frames of brood, put the ex- 
cluder on, and the rest of the brood on top. At this point I am differing from 
many others, I know, as we heai'd here last year. It has been advised to put 
the queen below with only one frame of brood. I believe that to be more or 
less of a backset to the bees. There are not enough bees on one frame to 
keep many bees downstairs where the queen is, and I am sure the queen 
curtails her laying till more are hatched and there are more young bees in the 
lower body. I have tried the one-comb method, witli the result of losing part 
of the queens. I usually put below at least two frames of sealed brood and 
one frame of open brood. The bees are then left alone until they are working 
well in the supers. To get comb honey there must be a flow of at lea.st three 
pounds per day — the more the better, but I have had a good crop with a 
flow that barely exceeded three pounds per day through the whole flow. 
When bees are going good in the supers I {)ut on comb-honey supers. 
Previous to this time, at the time I put on excluders, I mark the colonies 
in this way: the best colonies, those with the more prolific queens and the 
most bees, I marked No. 1 ; the next best I marked No. 2. When I am ready 
for supers I know just where to put them. I go to the No. 1 colonies and 
take off the top body. I take what brood there is there and put it below till 
the lower body is full of brood of some kind. If there is not enough I go 
to one of the colonies not marked at all and get some, but seldom have to 
do that. I usually leave one empty or partly empty comb for the queen to 
lay in immediately. Then I put on supers, usually two. If the flow does not 
look good and it seems to me as if it would not last long, I put on just one. 
Even if the flow is short and not very strong I can get one super filled. As 
a rule there are two, and in the bottom super there are either two side 
combs drawn out — I mean extracting combs — or there are one or more drawn 
combs in the sections. If that condition prevails the bees will occupy the 
sections almost at once, and in a short time the super is filled. Before the 
super is filled I transpose the two and put the lower one on top. If the bees 
are producing heavily I put another on at that time on top. The next visit 
I will shift the lower one on top if it is finished, as it usually is, and keep 
supering as the bees need it till the flow stops. Sometimes I will find bees 
working in one side of the super. That super is turied around so the side 
worked on is opposite from where it was, which induces them to begin the 
other side. The bees must be watched as closely as possible during the flow. 
I make the different yards about once a week. The hive bodies I take off 
the comb-honey colonies are given to the bees I did not mark at all; and 
as there is usually a little brood in them, I frequently put it right down in 
with their own brood if the colony looks as if it needed help. If honey is 
coming in strong and the No. 2 colonies possibly need room. I ha\'e extra 
supers for them right in the yard. One must use judgment in supering, as 



20 Kansas State Horticultural Society. 

it is easy to overdo it and get a scattered lot of unfinished honey, or crowd 
them too much and not get the crop one should, and induce swarming. 

The big question is, of course, swarming. I hereby admit that I know little 
about it. I have read a lot, all that I have found, and do not think that 
anyone has very much positive knowledge about it or how to prevent or stop 
it after the bees have the notion of swarming well established. I believe 
we do know what induces it, but if it is known how to keep a strong colony 
of bees working in a confined situation such as comb-honey supers, without 
swarming, I do not know who knows it. Some colonies will do that very 
thing; some will attempt to swarm at almost the first symptom of crowding. 
Why one colony should swarm and another not, under the same conditions, 
is what I do not know. After a colony has shown the intention of swarming, 
all m.y own attempts to prevent it have been failures. I have tried all the 
varieties of shaking I have ever heard of and invented a few of m.y own. I 
have shaken them on empty combs, on full combs — that is, combs of honey — 
on partly filled ones. I have shaken them twice and three times in the same 
day, and every time I have shaken a colony of bees that are getting ready to 
swarm, and shaken them with their own queen, I have failed without excep- 
tion. Some one else may have a different movement than mine, but my own 
does not do the business. They will not go to work by that manipulation. 

One way I have succeeded in making them work was to take their queen 
entirely away and leave just one queen cell without brood till the cell hatches, 
then giving it back to them after the queen has mated. They will then work 
in a sort of listless way till the j'oung queen hatches, and then they are all 
right; but I have lost some valuable time, of course. I have also tried the 
following with success: Take the queen away with one or two frames of 
brood, shake out all the bees some distance from the hive, and set a weak 
colony on the stand that has a good queen. I put the old queen with one 
or two frames of brood on the stand I took the weak colony from. I destroy 
all queen cells in the old hive and let the bees return to this hive. I have 
had them go to work almost at once after that manipulation. The new 
queen seems to put a new sort of aspect on things, and being shaken and 
disorganized, they have always accepted the new one and have gone to work. 
At that time, if I still have more comb-honey supers to fill, and flow con- 
tinues, I can then go to one of the colonies marked No. 2 and make the same 
manipulation before described, take their extracting super and put it on one 
of those not marked, and give them comb-honey supers. They will be 
by that time in condition to build sections, and just as good as the ones 
marked No. 1. It will be seen that I do not give any colony comb-honey 
supers until they have been well started working upstairs and have the storing 
habit established. I do not have many or a large per cent of colonies attempt 
to swarm when the plan is followed, but I do have some. In my largest yard 
last year, one of sixty colonies, I had five colonies try to swarm out of thirty 
that I had on comb-honey supers. That yard did not have the best flow. 
The one that had the best flow, a yard of fifty-three colonies, with thirty-five 
comb-honey colonies, did not have a single one attempt to swarm that I 
discovered; but of course I might have missed out on one or two. This is my 
best reason for clipping the queen. 

I make weekly visits during the flow. It is easy to discover a colony that 



Comb Honey. 21 

is making the attem])t to swarm, if the queen is cHpped. They may be ckis- 
tered over the outside of the hive. The}' will not be in the supers when other 
colonies are. The queen may be in the grass with a bunch of bees with her. 
If the bees do not seem normal, are not working as they should, or as the 
others are. a look in the brood chamber will re\cal whether they want to 
swarm or not. If the queens were not clipped they very likely would be 
gone when I got there, or hanging on some of those big trees on the highest 
limb they could find. Another good reason for clipping the queens is that I 
can keep a line on the age of the queens and look the combs over for disease. 
I do not requeen at any given time, as I have not seen fit to do that as yet; 
but I know where the poor queens are, and then when I find those good, big 
supersedure cells I know I'ight where to put them. 

Another thing in favor of comb-honey production is the fact that bees will 
not build in sections till the lower body is full of something, either honey 
or brood, and they keep it full. When fall comes you are quite sure to be 
well fixed with winter stores. It is very different in producing extracted 
honey. By putting brood upstairs bees will work up there whether there is 
anything below or not. I have, and no doubt you have, found a full hive 
both' on top with nearly nothing below. I had that demonstrated to me this 
last season to my satisfaction. I had a poor year — two days of twenty-degree 
weather during fruit bloom — and those days w(>re a week apart. One day it 
got ilown to fifteen degrees. K\erything tliat ever produced a drop of nectar 
was killed — even the dandelions, and that is going some. The bees were shoit 
of stores on account of it. I, like most beekeei)ers, dependc^d upon somewhat 
of a spring flow. I do not any more, but I did. I had to feed until white 
clo\-er showed u]). When it did show up it was a mighty poor showing. No- 
bod;/ would sell a hoof of stock last winter or spring, and e\-erybody had 
more stock than feed. As fast as a clover head would get in bloom it \^as 
eaten off. I got nothing frcm it at all, but just enough to keep the bees 
breeding till sweet clover came. I have no complaint to make on what the 
sweet clover did. I had a good flow for about four weeks. I harvested 260 
cases of comb honey from the hives at that time, and about 9,500 poimds of 
extracted honey; and those colonies were in good shape. I sold the comb 
hone>-. Then dry weather came. Heartsease bloomed, but the weather was 
so dry that there was no nectar in any kind of bloom. It stayed dry till 
frost. Of that 9,500 pounds of extracted honey I had to give back to the 
bees 6.000 tjounds or go out of the bee business. I did not need to feed the 
comb-honey colonies more than 500 pounds altogether, all of which seems to 
me to be a m'ghty good argument in favor of comb honey. I foimd colony 
after colony with not a iiound of honey in the brood chamber and a full ten- 
frame body above, in which case I simply took out the excluder. 

I would not advise anyone to attemi't to produce comb honey if he will 
not take the tniie to attend to the bees during the nectar flow. If they are 
neglected and not properly supered one will not get the crop or there will 
be an unnecessary amount of swarming. If one has but little time I think 
extracted honey would be the kind to produce. There is little if any trouble 
about swarming, but if full-depth bodies are used for supers the sujiering is 
but little trouble, if one has them to put on when needed. It is not best to 
put on two or three and let them go. One might have to do that way and 



22 Kansas State Horticultural Society. 

get a good crop too; but if nice, fat combs are produced they will be pro- 
duced where the bees have not too big a surface to cover. It is not advisable 
for anyone to attempt to produce comb honey alone. The flow is not alwaj^s 
good enough for comb honey, and there are always colonies in any apiary 
that are not strong enough for comb honey but are strong enough to store 
extracted honey. It seems to me that the beekeeper should produce both. 
If one has the equipment and is ready for a big crop and the good big season 
we all look for ever.y year, and gets all the comb-honey supers filled, he is 
far ahead financially of what he would be if producing only extracted honey. 

About sections and filling sections with foundation: I have tried tln-ee 
arrangements that are supposed to fasten foundation to the top of the sec- 
tion by the hot-plate method. They have been a rank failure with me. 
There is not enough melted wax to do the job so they will stay. You know, 
as my bees are in the country, the supers have to be handled several times 
and then take some bumping on the road, and I want that foundation to 
stay put. I use full sheets, of course. I cut the foundation so it just fits 
inside the section, and then with melted wax, that stands on an oil stove 
near me, I fasten the foundation to the wood. I use a bristle brush with a 
long handle. They are what are sold as artists' bristles, and a flat one is 
better than a round one, and should be about a quarter of an inch wide. 
While fastening foundation that way is not the fastest way, it is much faster 
than the Van Dusen fastener, and the beauty of it is that it does the job, and 
a super has to have rougher handling than I ever gave one to loosen founda- 
tion from the section. I have tried half sheets of foimdation, a short starter, 
and a sheet about four-fifths the depth of -the section and then a bottom 
starter. I really think the latter is the very best method of putting founda- 
tion in sections, but it is troublesome, and I have been cutting my sheets 
so they will just go in the section and fastening them on three sides with 
wax as described. If one uses a short starter he will have many sections in 
a crop that are not fastened at the sides or bottom. He will have many 
built nearly full about half way down, and then quit. He will have a lot 
of chunk honey in sections, which is too expensive a way to produce chimk 
honey. If the flow is good and the bees are strong one can get good comb 
honey with short starters. If one uses full sheets the bees will begin sooner 
without crowding, will fill the sections quicker, there will be few half-built 
sections if properly supered, and there will be light sections instead of chunks 
reaching half way down, and the light sections will be straight and market- 
able. 

When I see the crop coming I order shipping cases and get them nailed, and 
as fast as the supers are packed I fill the supers with new sections, having 
a large number readj^ and waiting for that time. The reason for that is that 
sometimes we get a big heartsease flow in August and September, and I want 
to be ready for that in case it does come. Another reason for getting the 
comb honey off as soon as it is done is to prevent the bees from getting it 
travel stained and injiu'ing the color. In packing it I sometimes find a sec- 
tion or two that are not finished. I fill supers with these and give them back 
to the bees, as I always start packing before the flow is entirely over, if 
possible. If I have a quantity of these left after the flow is over, and they 
are too light to market, I extract them and save the combs and sections, 



Comb Honey. 23 

di\'iding them up in the sujiers for the next year. The foundation and the 
sections are not wasted, and the bees start much sooner in a super that has 
one or more of these combs in it. 

In getting the honey ready for market I have a heavy work bench about 
waist high. I put the full supers on this, and with a stiff painter's putty 
knife, ground sharp on one side like a chisel, I scrape the top of the sections 
just as clean as possible while they are still in the super. When the tops are 
clean the rest is easy, as just a little cleaning finishes the job, the rest of 
the section being protected by the section holder. The net weight is stamped 
on the top, they are put in the cases, nailed up, and are ready for the crate. 
The crate is arranged to hold six cases with handles. Comb honey must be 
well packed for shipment, and these crates must be rightly planned and stiff 
enough to stand all likely strain. I will say that I have never had a damaged 
shipment of comb honey. I pack it so well that it will require a wreck or 
the limit in carelessness to damage it. 

To you extracted-honey men I would suggest getting some comb-honey 
supers. You will find a quick market for all you can produce and more. Our 
honey is finished and can be made ready to sell before the cheaper western 
honey gets here, and that is the time to sell it. Earlj' in the fall people begin 
to think about honey, and that is the time to get it on the market. I be- 
lieve you will find it a most attractive branch of your business, and I wish 
you success. 



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